Reading the book, with all its diversities, can be dizzying—and it’s a
glorious feeling. Rarely do anthologies capture quite so much energy of
expression. No reader is likely to find all of these poems to their
taste, and that is part of the fun, because as we traverse the types and
tones, we are challenged to define our own tastes, desires, and
identities. Who am I when I read this book? we ask. And: Who might I be?

Regardless of our own relationship to gender, to bodies, to love,
lust, and loss, we will find ourselves somewhere within these pages,
within these lines. Here are voices to hear—voices that, because of all
their differences, are ineluctably human: our friends, family,
neighbors, ancestors, lovers, selves.